Feliz Pascoa from the land of Chocolate Eggs
Happy Easter!! It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized I have never written what people do for Easter here.... I don’t know how I forgot because I have never seen ANYONE celebrate Easter like this. Its crazy... basically its an excuse to eat a lot of chocolate, no problem for me!! About a month ago people started making these giant, giant, chocolate eggs, and they fill them with more candy, and more chocolate... and they are basically amazing. In the grocery store they have aisles and aisles of chocolate eggs of all different sizes, and with all different sorts of fillings... some are only 5 inches tall, but others are huge- like 11 or 12 inches! Ginormous!!
The Relief Society had an activity to learn how to make them, and people have been making them like crazy. It was really cool because Sister Labadie and I EACH got like 3 huge Chocolate Eggs. And one of them was the biggest thing of chocolate I have ever seen in my life. They are expensive too-so we couldn’t believe it. Way nice of the ward here. They are so good to us! They also make way good truffles here in this ward... yeah lets just say that Sister Labadie and I are glad that Easter has passed because we really don’t need all of this chocolate. We have started running more in the mornings.... which means that instead of running a lousy 10 minutes, we run almost 20 minutes... the sad thing is that it nearly kills us... I just keep telling myself that I really am in shape because we walk all day- I am in walking shape- I tell myself, just not in running shape anymore. I have no idea if it is true, but what can you do.
Anyways, that’s just some fun news, but as far as the real news- we had an awesome, awesome week this past week. We had a surprise baptism- and this is a way cool story. About 2 months ago we were walking on the street, and we passed this really tall, big Brazilian. He looks like a football player. Well anyways, we passed him, and then about 2 seconds later Sister Labadie and I both looked at each other because we felt this huge thump in our heart. Sister Labadie was already starting to talk to someone else, and she said, well go talk to him, so I turned around and started running. Well I caught up to him, and talked to him a bit, got his address, and set up an appointment. Well after that we always tried to teach him, but he was NEVER home... we literally passed by his house like every day, and it was only one time in the past 2 months that we taught him.
Well this past week we had a bunch of lessons fall through, and as we were walking on the street, praying about what to do, Sister Labadie said to me, let’s try Douglas...I said, “He’s never home but sure let’s try again.” So we walked down to his house, and he was home!! He said he was having a bad day, and so we gave him a Book of Mormon, and sang a hymn with him and taught him. He was completely different at the end of the lesson, and thanked us for teaching him. We set up to visit him the next day.
So the next day we went to visit him, and he was soo different. He had a huge smile on his face, and asked us, what do you guys do to celebrate the 22 of September? uhhhh Sister Labadie and I looked at each other... trying to fathom what could possibly be this day… and then Douglas said, well, its the day that Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith and told him about the plates.... and he started to tell us the whole history about Joseph Smith. He had such passion in his voice, as he asked us to teach us everything we knew about the church, as he told us he knew it was true, and he wanted to read all day all of the Book of Mormon. Sister Labadie and I taught him and taught him, and just felt so overwhelmed by the spirit.
It’s so incredible to see how people are prepared by the Lord. Douglas had already gone to the church in another part of Ribeirao Preto for several months many years past (I am translating all of this back into English by the way… that’s why my grammar is horrible at times... just FYI ) But anyways, he never really felt the power of it... but this time, the timing was right. He had never liked to read until this week, but he said now his life has completely changed. He practically begged us to be baptized as soon as possible. And as soon as we set a date for the baptism he began counting down.. He was so excited.
It was an awesome baptism, Danielo baptized him!!! It was so incredible to see this recent convert of just 5 weeks baptized Douglas.. it was like David baptizing Goliath. ha-ha... it was a bit hard. But Douglas was way excited because he thinks that Danielo looks a little bit like Joseph Smith. I don’t really see it... but sure. Douglas was happy! Douglas even bore his testimony in sacrament meeting and it was so simple, but super powerful... so now Sister and I are trying to talk him into preparing to serve a mission.. He is only 20 so we will see what we can do! The first thing Douglas wants to do is help his family come to church. His mom came with him to see his baptism, and was very touched... so we will see how that goes.
Anyways, I have blabbed on long enough here, we are still working with our other pesquisadores- they are coming along here- with Carol and Patricia... we are praying that they can be baptized soon, they both want to be baptized... we just need Patricia to marry, and Carols boyfriend to move out... so yep, that’s coming along.
Oh yes, one last thing. We had transfers! Sister Labadie was sure she was being transfered, she had her suitcases packed and everything. But pretty much all the ward members have been praying for the past week that we wouldn’t be transferred... and so transfers came... and went! We are staying here! wahoo!! We sat with Lia and Danilo when we called, just like we did our last transfers, and we all anxiously waited to hear the news, and we all celebrated to know that we would be here 6 more weeks! Yeah!!!!
Entao... that’s only some of the news about how it’s going waaay down south here, but its time to wrap this up! I love you guys and I am soo grateful for the letters, prayers, and thoughts. I got some great letters this past week and they came on a day I was really, really, needing them. So thank you soo much for thinking of me! I felt so loved!!
Happy Late Easter!! I love you all!!
Beijos! Sister Melanie Monroe
obs- Can you believe I have been here 10 months!! Ahhhh!!
The Relief Society had an activity to learn how to make them, and people have been making them like crazy. It was really cool because Sister Labadie and I EACH got like 3 huge Chocolate Eggs. And one of them was the biggest thing of chocolate I have ever seen in my life. They are expensive too-so we couldn’t believe it. Way nice of the ward here. They are so good to us! They also make way good truffles here in this ward... yeah lets just say that Sister Labadie and I are glad that Easter has passed because we really don’t need all of this chocolate. We have started running more in the mornings.... which means that instead of running a lousy 10 minutes, we run almost 20 minutes... the sad thing is that it nearly kills us... I just keep telling myself that I really am in shape because we walk all day- I am in walking shape- I tell myself, just not in running shape anymore. I have no idea if it is true, but what can you do.
Anyways, that’s just some fun news, but as far as the real news- we had an awesome, awesome week this past week. We had a surprise baptism- and this is a way cool story. About 2 months ago we were walking on the street, and we passed this really tall, big Brazilian. He looks like a football player. Well anyways, we passed him, and then about 2 seconds later Sister Labadie and I both looked at each other because we felt this huge thump in our heart. Sister Labadie was already starting to talk to someone else, and she said, well go talk to him, so I turned around and started running. Well I caught up to him, and talked to him a bit, got his address, and set up an appointment. Well after that we always tried to teach him, but he was NEVER home... we literally passed by his house like every day, and it was only one time in the past 2 months that we taught him.
Well this past week we had a bunch of lessons fall through, and as we were walking on the street, praying about what to do, Sister Labadie said to me, let’s try Douglas...I said, “He’s never home but sure let’s try again.” So we walked down to his house, and he was home!! He said he was having a bad day, and so we gave him a Book of Mormon, and sang a hymn with him and taught him. He was completely different at the end of the lesson, and thanked us for teaching him. We set up to visit him the next day.
So the next day we went to visit him, and he was soo different. He had a huge smile on his face, and asked us, what do you guys do to celebrate the 22 of September? uhhhh Sister Labadie and I looked at each other... trying to fathom what could possibly be this day… and then Douglas said, well, its the day that Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith and told him about the plates.... and he started to tell us the whole history about Joseph Smith. He had such passion in his voice, as he asked us to teach us everything we knew about the church, as he told us he knew it was true, and he wanted to read all day all of the Book of Mormon. Sister Labadie and I taught him and taught him, and just felt so overwhelmed by the spirit.
It’s so incredible to see how people are prepared by the Lord. Douglas had already gone to the church in another part of Ribeirao Preto for several months many years past (I am translating all of this back into English by the way… that’s why my grammar is horrible at times... just FYI ) But anyways, he never really felt the power of it... but this time, the timing was right. He had never liked to read until this week, but he said now his life has completely changed. He practically begged us to be baptized as soon as possible. And as soon as we set a date for the baptism he began counting down.. He was so excited.
It was an awesome baptism, Danielo baptized him!!! It was so incredible to see this recent convert of just 5 weeks baptized Douglas.. it was like David baptizing Goliath. ha-ha... it was a bit hard. But Douglas was way excited because he thinks that Danielo looks a little bit like Joseph Smith. I don’t really see it... but sure. Douglas was happy! Douglas even bore his testimony in sacrament meeting and it was so simple, but super powerful... so now Sister and I are trying to talk him into preparing to serve a mission.. He is only 20 so we will see what we can do! The first thing Douglas wants to do is help his family come to church. His mom came with him to see his baptism, and was very touched... so we will see how that goes.
Anyways, I have blabbed on long enough here, we are still working with our other pesquisadores- they are coming along here- with Carol and Patricia... we are praying that they can be baptized soon, they both want to be baptized... we just need Patricia to marry, and Carols boyfriend to move out... so yep, that’s coming along.
Oh yes, one last thing. We had transfers! Sister Labadie was sure she was being transfered, she had her suitcases packed and everything. But pretty much all the ward members have been praying for the past week that we wouldn’t be transferred... and so transfers came... and went! We are staying here! wahoo!! We sat with Lia and Danilo when we called, just like we did our last transfers, and we all anxiously waited to hear the news, and we all celebrated to know that we would be here 6 more weeks! Yeah!!!!
Entao... that’s only some of the news about how it’s going waaay down south here, but its time to wrap this up! I love you guys and I am soo grateful for the letters, prayers, and thoughts. I got some great letters this past week and they came on a day I was really, really, needing them. So thank you soo much for thinking of me! I felt so loved!!
Happy Late Easter!! I love you all!!
Beijos! Sister Melanie Monroe
obs- Can you believe I have been here 10 months!! Ahhhh!!
posted by Bev at 1:42 PM
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